


i am gone though i am here

by malachitegrey



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, hope you like seeing your favorite characters in pain because i sure do
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:15:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28202967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malachitegrey/pseuds/malachitegrey
Summary: Dana Scully has no appreciation for fine cinema unless someone dies.
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	1. Wednesday, November 22, 1989

_Wednesday, November 22, 1989_

“ _This_ is what you want to see?” she asked, attempting to shake out the drooping newspaper without giving her elbows rug burn. She knew that glancing over her shoulder and up at her sister on the sofa, knees tucked up under a blanket and hands curled around a mug of tea, would make her look like she was rolling her eyes. So she did it.

“C’mon, Dana. Greatest writer in the English language. Captures the human spirit, the call to bravery within all of us, like no one else.” 

“You just want to watch a bunch of sweaty men covered in mud. I think Daddy and the boys are playing football tomorrow.”

“ _Ew_ , Dana.” Missy threw a pillow at her, which crashed into the open newspaper, tearing it from her fingers. She cackled and rolled onto her back, slinging the pillow back in Missy’s direction and flopping her head back onto the floor when it sailed over her sister’s shoulder. Missy carefully set the tea down and then flung the blanket toward Dana, where it caught on her knees and whipped a tassel into her mouth.

“I can’t believe I came home to be ABUSED like this!” Dana shouted, spitting fuzz and laughter. 

“Shut up, you’re five minutes away.”

“Am not.” 

“Girls,” Mom called from the kitchen, “quiet down or come help.”

The sisters looked at each other, then bolted for the door to the carport, Dana giggling the entire stampede down the hallway as she grabbed their coats and Missy swept her keys off the table, both of them stuffing feet into snow boots as they raced to escape Thanksgiving prep. Missy grabbed the post of the carport with one hand and whipped herself around it, barreling down the driveway, Dana copying her, the sisters careening out into the early darkness as their breath misted around them. 

“You’ll like it, I promise,” Missy said as she pulled away from their parents’ curb, both of them still a bit breathless. “Yes, it’s gonna be hard to understand, but you’re not a total dim bulb.” 

“Shut it, Arthur Conan Doyle, I eat big words for breakfast.” She pulled the collar of her coat up to her chin and hunkered down into the seat as Missy blew through a stop sign. “Missy! C’mon! I never should’ve let you drive.” 

Missy very deliberately put on her blinker and pushed the brakes as slowly as possible as they neared the next turn. “Shut it yourself, Doctor Boring. Haven’t been arrested yet. And you’re a terrible driver.”

“I’m a _safe_ driver.”

“Who can’t park for shit.”

She opened her mouth to respond but really couldn’t argue with that. Her sister carefully pulled into a space at the theater, perfectly straight and perfectly even between the lines. “No, wait,” Missy said, throwing her arm dramatically across Dana’s chest when she moved. “No moving until the engine is off, dear. I’m going to straighten out.” Agonizingly slowly, she put the car in reverse, backed straight out of the space, moved the wheel a micrometer, and then pulled forward again, somehow parking even more perfectly. Dana rolled her eyes, unbuckled, and flung the door open with a groan, clomping toward the booth in her neon purple snow boots to buy the movie passes. She knew her sister was grinning behind her. 

And, fine, Missy had been right. As she usually was about this sort of thing, unfortunately. 

“That was a _lot_ of death,” Dana said, blowing on her hands as they waited for Missy’s ancient car to warm up. “And I liked the French princess.” She refused to acknowledge that she _hadn’t_ actually understood most of the dialogue, in English or in French. But her sister definitely had suckered her into a movie that fit her tastes pretty well, aside from that little hiccup. 

“You know they’re married? She and the guy who played Henry. In real life, I mean. It was in one of the reviews.”

“Mm. I can see that. He seems kind of like a jerk though.”

“You think every man is a jerk.”

“That’s because it’s true.”

They sat quietly for a few minutes, waiting as the engine rumbled and the bum heater clicked in a way that would have been ominous in any other car. 

“He was cute though,” Missy said, and Dana rolled her eyes over at her again. “Really, really cute. That accent! And even covered in blood. Maybe especially covered in blood, for you.”

“That’s how I like ‘em. Only cold, dead men for me.”

“Come on. You can’t watch a speech like that and not be moved by his ability to capture something ephemeral and beautiful about perseverance and unity.” Missy put on a bombastic voice. “‘We happy few, we band of brothers.’ Something something, yay England.” 

“Wow. Yes, greatest writer in the English language, I totally agree. You’ve captured his poetry beautifully.”

“Shut up.” The car had stopped sounding like it was counting down to an explosion, so Missy put it in gear and ripped out of the parking lot much less cautiously than she’d entered it, despite the slushy snow in patches of the lot. Dana looked at her fingers as they drove, pondering how long it would take the muscles in them to freeze solid if Missy had forgotten to gas up again and they got stuck overnight compared to if she was lying dead under an inch of cold mud in France compared to the reverse thaw rate of the turkey Mom probably had out on the counter by now. It had started to snow while they were in the movie, and she saw her life stretched out along the glinting black road, swirling with flecks of beauty, long and unknown, just like this. 


	2. Thursday, January 30, 1992

_ Thursday, January 30, 1992 _

Sitting on her floor, deep in preparations for her morning course (which she knew her students called Dr. Scully’s Blood Breakfast, despite her attempts to get them to knock it off and take it seriously even if it  _ was _ an 8 am Friday forensic lecture; she needed a new job where she was valued), she didn’t register the ringing phone until her name, called through the long tunnel of the troposphere to emerge low and insistent from the speaker of her answering machine, prickled through into her awareness.

“Dana. Dana. I know you’re there, Mom gave me your course schedule. Anyway, you’ll never guess who’s playing Frasier’s first wife—Emma Thompson, that French princess. Remember? She’s got an American accent, and a fabulous sequined vest, and she wants to get back with Frasier so her taste in men is about as good as yours, and—oh, it’s back.” And the machine beeped to signal the end of the recording.

She rolled her eyes and stayed within the ring of papers spread around her. Her sister would eventually call back, and she’d eventually have time to nod and  _ mmhmm _ in a conversation about a TV show, although hopefully by then Missy would have something more important to talk about.


	3. Friday, March 5, 1993

_Friday, March 5, 1993_

“I can’t believe you talked me into going to the _movies_ ,” she whined, stealing a handful of popcorn before they’d even sat down. 

Melissa balanced the popcorn bag in Dana’s lap, leaning it lightly against her sister’s torso, so she could shimmy out of her coat, while Dana froze with her purse in one hand and popcorn in the other, trying not to breathe and knock over the bag. “Look,” Missy said, with the conviction of someone who had taken one evening course in social work before flitting off to another interest, “I know it’s not your department but I’m sure everyone there is in an uproar about the World Trade Center bombing, and you could probably use a break. Even workaholics need a few hours watching pretty people with accents. This is supposed to be good, maybe win some Oscars.” Missy snatched the popcorn bag back and physically moved Dana’s hand toward her mouth, encouraging her to eat her popcorn, before Dana batted her away to eat on her own terms. 

“So tell me what I’m about to watch, Svengoolie,” she prodded after a few beats of ignoring her sister’s blatant attempt to get her to talk about her feelings. 

“Wow, you are _such_ a nerd. If I hadn’t taken you to several pieces of fine cinema myself, I’d think you were devoid of culture altogether.” Missy huffed out a breath, then seemed to reset herself. “Okay. It’s based on a novel by E.M. Forster, also called _Howards End_ , set in England, and there are two sisters looking for a new house.”

“Sounds riveting. Which one gets murdered first?”

“Shut up. The book is beautiful, which you’d know if you had any taste or ever listened to me. Anyway, I don’t want to shock you, but when one goes to see a movie, one generally doesn’t need to know the entire plot ahead of time, so all I’ll say is that your favorite actress Emma Thompson is in it.”

Dana had finally managed to extract herself from her coat and honestly hadn’t been paying much attention to her sister’s rambling. “Who?”

“Emma Thompson. You know, Dana, I worry about your language comprehension skills. Are you sure you passed the MCATs?”

“Shut up. The only woman in _Henry V_ , right?” 

“That’s the one. I’m glad at least one tiny grain of my attempts to inject some culture into your depressing life stuck with you.”

“Yes, check back in another five years and you’ll be able to pull a pearl of culture out of my throat. When you hold it up to the light, its iridescence will spell ‘ _Emma Thompson_.’”

“Shut up for real, it’s starting.”

The movie was, she would kindly say, not to her tastes, which her sister never seemed to understand. Although since she’d had a fondness for Anthony Hopkins since _Silence of the Lambs,_ she wasn’t as upset about the romance as Missy was.

“How can you be so bothered by this?” she prodded over late-night milkshakes in a crappy diner she loved. “You’ve read the book. You knew what happened.”

“How can you _not_?” Missy returned. “Just because her sister’s single and pregnant, he throws her out? When he had an affair during his first marriage? Aside from your extremely icky kink for older men—“

“Hey!”

“What, it’s true. But Dana, there’s no _romance_.”

“Of course there’s romance. She needed a house, he gave her one. Several. And they had a solid marriage for most of it.”

“Wow, your future husband is so lucky. Yours is the kind of soul the Bard wrote sonnets about. I bet you’re one of those people who thinks that Elizabeth Bennet really did fall in love with Mr. Darcy when she saw his huge estate.”

“Who?”

“Oh, come _on_. _Pride and Prejudice_? Jane Austen. Greatest writer in the English language.”

“I thought Shakespeare was the greatest writer in the English language.”

“Shut up.” Missy chewed on her straw, seemingly lost in thought for a moment. “Don’t you think it’s better to wait for your soulmate?”

Dana scoffed. “Not today, and certainly not in Edwardian England. Women had to do what they could to survive. Like what’s-his-name’s wife. Everyone makes choices they can live with to get the best out of life they can, and only some of us are lucky enough to finally get the house rightfully willed to her.” 

“Wait.” Missy looked up from her glass. “You don’t believe in soulmates?”

“You’ve met the men I’ve dated. Anyway, the idea of one electric, instant, fated connection with one perfect person is ridiculous and implausible. Love is hormones and habit.”

“I have _not_ met the men you’ve dated, and you know this because you purposely did not introduce them to anyone.”

She grinned that mischievous grin that only came out on rare occasions and pointedly did not respond. She hadn’t realized how much she had missed needling her sister over the past few years, when she’d been absorbed in med school and the Academy and, yes, a few impractical relationships driven by hormones and habits. Maybe her frustrating current assignment would at least allow her some evenings and weekends for a better work-life balance.

She brought the last few drops rattling onto her tongue. “We should see another movie sometime.”


	4. Wednesday, April 7, 1993

_Wednesday, April 7, 1993_

Arriving back at her apartment at 10:53 pm after they had lost track of time arguing about an old file yet again, perpetually waiting for new cases in the burgeoning field of paranormal crimes, as she floated in an exhausted daze past the mailbox bank, she realized she’d forgotten to check for a few days. There was a letter, of all things, from her sister, on stationery printed with seashells that was surprisingly tasteful. 

_Dear Dana_ , it said, undated, of course. _I know you won’t return any messages, and it was too late to call you anyway. I know you’re busy and important. But I thought of you last night. The Academy Awards just happened and Emma Thompson won for Howard’s End. Your pearl of culture is moving up in the world. Just like you are climbing the career ladder. I’m sure. Even if you don’t believe in soulmates, I think sisters can be soulmates, a little bit. And still leave room for other soulmates. I believe it, Dana, for both of us together and ourselves. I know you don’t want to hear it, but I love you. I’m rambling now, so I’ll let you get back to work. Thank you for making the hard choices so we can survive, my sister. I know I can count on you. Love, Your Sister._

She paused, one hand on the back of the couch, stilling her body from going about the motions of docking home while she read. Her sister had this periodic letter-writing habit, and though she hadn’t sent one in several years, they were almost always this level of frank emotionality, which only occasionally came out in their time together. Which was good, as far as she was concerned, since she could only handle so much at one time, even from her sister. This was a hell of a thing to get on a day when she felt like a tripped-breaker brain in a jar that had somehow managed to roll home. 

Her sister’s perception of things was…interesting, to say the least. She set the letter down and drifted toward the bathroom. She didn’t feel much like she was climbing the career ladder or making sacrifices to survive. More the opposite, in both cases, spinning her wheels in a dead-end assignment she was reluctant to admit she was actually starting to enjoy, but she couldn’t imagine it would be her life for long. But maybe to someone like Missy, forever wandering toward a greater peace with herself and more warmth with the people around her regardless of where her path led, Dana’s road seemed more solid and straight than she felt it was. 

These were questions for a new day. She collapsed into bed, dreamed of an index finger brushing hers through the bars of a prison she’d made with her own choices, and woke up itching to fight with her partner. 

When she found the letter on the table behind the sofa weeks later while tidying up, she swept it, without rereading, into the basket of birthday and holiday cards that got shoved to the back of the closet. She did not consider herself a person who held on to mementoes.


	5. Saturday, July 3, 1993

_Saturday, July 3, 1993_

“DANA!” her sister yelled across the back lawn. “THEY’RE BACK.”

“WHAT?” she yelled back, helping Ahab light the grill.

“EMMA AND KEN.”

“WHO?”

“Melissa, stop shouting at your sister and set the table,” her father scolded, shaking his head. “You two turn into teenagers every time you’re together.”

Her sister ducked back inside and reemerged with a stack of plates. “Sorry, Daddy. But Dana, there’s another movie out with our favorite married Brits. It just came out. The reviews are good.”

“What is it?”

“ _Much Ado About Nothing_. Another Shakespeare, but a comedy this time. Fewer corpses for you, I’m afraid.”

Dad glanced over at her suspiciously and she turned away and ducked her head for a moment, fiddling with the grilling tools, before moving to help her sister. “I suppose I’ll live,” she murmured, smiling up at Missy conspiratorially.

“You shouldn’t care so much what he thinks, Dana,” Missy whispered, taking care to catch her eye. “You’ve always had the same tastes, and you always will, and you shouldn’t be ashamed of it even if he doesn’t think it’s ‘proper’ or whatever.” 

“It’s not that. It’s fine.” She shook her head, straightening a fork. “I’m fine. When do you want to go to the movie?”

They ended up sneaking out like an open secret, shushing each other’s giggles and hustling each other out the door while their father dozed on the couch a few hours after dinner and their mother silently waved her hands at them to get gone. Their brothers were wrestling in the backyard and never would notice they had left. 

One movie and several swigs from Missy’s flask later, sitting on the back of Missy’s car in the empty high school parking lot at midnight, she rested her elbows on her knees as she stared into the darkness just beyond the jaundiced halo around the asphalt, lost in thought. 

“Come on, Dana, you must have liked it.”

“Mmm? Oh, yes. I did. Very funny.”

Missy leaned forward to put her face in Dana’s line of sight. “Where are you?”

“Nowhere. I don’t know.” She sighed, rolling her head around on her shoulders, trying to figure out what she wanted to say. “I’m fine, things have been good lately, but…maybe I’m too old and comedies don’t work on me anymore. I can’t stop thinking about Hero.”

“The world has always had it out for us. Women, I mean.”

“It’s not that. I mean, yes. But…” She put her chin in her hand, then huffed out a laugh. “What it must be like to…be dead, basically, while still alive. To love someone so much, even after they abandon you, that you voluntarily remove yourself from existence.”

“You’re a weirdo.”

“Thanks, sis. I guess I have trouble imagining it. A love that transcends death.”

Missy chuckled. “You are reading _way_ too much into this. If I’d known you’d bring your morbid sensibility even to Shakespeare’s best comedy…” She bumped Dana’s shoulder with hers. “But honestly? I think it’s because you don’t believe in soulmates.”

“Not this again.”

“Ha ha. Really. You don’t believe in love.”

“I do! I do.” She clasped her hands between her knees and looked down at them so she wouldn’t have to look at her sister. “I loved Daniel.”

“Really? You never said.”

She shrugged. “I didn’t see how it would change anything. Telling anyone, I guess I mean, but loving him, too. It wasn’t enough. I knew it, and I walked away.”

“Not all of us can solve our problems by temporarily dying.”

“Too true.” She clinked Missy’s flask against the keys her sister had looped around a finger. 

For a few minutes, only the sound of the cicadas filled the air. She felt hazy and oceanic from the alcohol and the summer humidity, even late at night, and she allowed an eddy of gratitude for easy silences with her sister. 

Eventually, Missy spoke again, but with her the waves of conversation always felt like the natural sounds of the landscape. “Dana, I have to level with you,” she started, “I think your definition of love is too narrow.”

“This from the woman who believes there’s one man in the entire world for everyone.” 

“Okay, we’re coming back to that, because that’s _not_ what I mean when I say ‘soulmates,’” her sister chided. “But hear me out on this. You may not be able to imagine forgiving a lover who’d misjudged you. But your family does that all the time. You still want Daddy’s approval even though he doesn’t understand you. I’ve done tons of terrible things to you over the years. And hell, I believe there are so many more ways to love than just what we see. I know you love your job. You probably love your coworkers in some small way—I can tell because you don’t talk about them. You loved that rabbit you had when we were kids.”

“Oh God, don’t remind me.” 

“But even though, yes, I do believe in a romantic love that goes beyond logic and death and all that, I also believe that love is…like a mist, maybe. Or maybe more like your breath. All the pieces of love that you have can fill you up, even if they’re small or all around you instead of coming from just one place, and they nourish you, and keep you alive. And you aren’t any less loved just because you haven’t met that one person yet.” 

“So,” Dana said, trying to hide the beginnings of a smile, “love expands to fill whatever container it’s in?”

“I guess you could put it like that, sure.”

“Missy.” Dana started chuckling. “You’re saying that love is a gas. The gaseous state of matter.” And suddenly she couldn’t stop laughing. 

“Oh my God, you are a _child_ ,” her sister squealed, shoving her shoulder. 

“I was born to speak all mirth and no matter,” Dana declared haughtily, then suppressed a burp. “Gaseous matter.”

“Ugh, I hate you, you drunken nerd. Let’s go home before Mom sends out a search party.”


End file.
